Tag: books

This is my first year of being self-employed, being my own boss, and it's resulted in more reading time! Here are my favourite reads of 2018 so far... Skagboys by Irvine Welsh I read a few Irvine Welsh books years ago and loved them all. In December, I finally got round to watching Trainspotting 2, … Continue reading From Welsh to Gaiman: Great Reads of 2018 (so far…)

In my opinion, writing is the foundation of human culture. As one of the earliest means human beings created to launch their thoughts into the future, there would be no cultures on this planet today without writing. However, writing is no longer the sole means of spreading stories and knowledge. With the 20th century advent of film and television, the idea of telling stories through writing is perhaps even the most archaic form of writing today. However, there’s a magic that still exists, for me at least, in a written story. I remember as a younger man thinking that I wanted to develop a form of writing that couldn’t translate to film, that had to be read to be understood. I wanted to expose what language alone is capable of being. It’s an internal experience rather than an external experience. That’s what I want to capitalize on in the stories I tell: the fact that they exist solely in the space between my mind and the reader’s. And therein, for me, lies the current cultural value of writing—that space between the writer’s mind and the reader’s and how it allows one person to comprehend another’s unmediated, unadulterated thoughts. There’s no actor to interpret. There’s no vision to see. There’s only one mind reaching out to another.

M.R. James (b. 1862) is perhaps one of the most understated writers of odd ghost stories of all time. Many of his stories take place at Oxbridge and other places with a very English feel, reflecting the life of the author himself. James also catalogued medieval manuscripts (see below), for which he was well-respected during his … Continue reading Montague Rhodes James

That time of year is fast approaching and you're in one of these two tricky situations (otherwise, why are you here?):
a. your friend or relation is Lovecraft-obsessed. You know nothing or very little about this man who has something to do with a squid. You need to know what to buy said friend/relation.
b. your friends/relations think that you actually want socks for the holidays (a note to my friends/relations - I always want socks). You need a wishlist which you can send out to avoid this.